How I've spent my furlough week

I have to say that Monday and Tuesday, spent visiting family on the Jersey shore, were the best part of the week thus far.

Back home on Wednesday and Thursday here featured awful humidity and heat and I didn't feel like doing much of anything. I did somehow manage to mow part of the front lawn last night. Oh yeah, and yesterday I went to Idea in New Haven (a once a year event, partly because it's a 50-minute drive) and got 3 really nice baskets, some lingonberry jam and 2 plants, which I re-potted when I got home. I also enjoyed a Swedish meatball lunch in their cafeteria. Can't shop on an empty stomach!

I also made a few calls to see if repairing my DeLonghi dehumidifer would be worth it. One of the sensors is not working and I was getting an error message on the digital display. Because I may need a 2nd dehumidifier in the basement, I may buy the new Frigidaire I have my eye on first, then, if the 70-pint Frigidiaire can't handle it alone, I will cart the 50-pint DeLonghii back to New Haven to the authorized dealer/repairer, which will probably cost about $100, not including gas and inconvenience of getting there. I bought the DeLonghii dehumidifer in 2003, so would rather not spend $100 on an 11-year-old appliance that's smaller than needed unless the Frigidaire needs help down there. However, I will delay ordering the Frigidaire on Amazon until mid-next week until I earn about $30 in Amazon dollars from my participation in some forums I belong to.

Today, unexpectedly, was much lower humidity and temps, and even downright cool! It's also been raining on and off all day.

So to take advantage of that, I spent some time in the kitchen making orange-date muffins, a cold pea soup and an apricot berry salsa that I'll mix in with yogurt.

I also hit BJs to return a $30 item, stopped at Shop Rite and Trader Joe's in the past few days. And I was at Macy's today and picked up a few summer tops. Spent $90. I picked up 6 DVDs from the library (it's getting harder and harder to find foreign films I haven't seen) and I've been watching one each night.

I stopped in at town hall yesterday and determined that my property taxes would not be lowered much if I sold or gave away the easement land my neighbor's driveway occupies. In fact, because we're in a one-acre zoned neighborhood, I could only sell up to a half acre, and the assessor calculated that selling that half acre wouldn't do much to lower my taxes because it's not part of the building lot, which holds the most value. That 1/2 acre is considered "excess land," and so my taxes would only fall by $110 a year! What a surprise. I had no idea that land would be valued differently by the town.

Today I also vacuumed, refreshed the hummingbird water and made some iced tea.

I stopped in at Lowe's and was thinking of re-staining my stockade fence, but when I was told I'd need to wash off the mildew first (I guess I did that last time), suddenly it seemed like so much work, especially since the fence is completely overgrown. I may just skip it for now. I don't feel like doing battle with the jungle out there.

So here it is Friday, and I haven't done ANY of the home maintenance projects I set out to do. Mostly painting stuff. There's still the weekend.